Shakespeare on Health-care and the Bad Effect of Sugars

a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings“… a surfeit of the sweetest things
The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.”

(Midsummer Night’s Dream act 2, sc. 2)

Comment. This site is not specifically targeting health, but it is worth pointing out that no expensive “discoveries” and expensive “researches” are necessary to rediscover what is intuitive.
Take this statement, chosen at random among hundreds (if not thousands) of similar comments:

Quote
A 2008 study by researchers at Princeton University supported the hypothesis that under certain circumstances, rats can become sugar dependent. The animals in the experiment displayed behaviors similar to those associated with addictive drugs, including binging, craving and opiate-like “withdrawal” marked by signs of anxiety and behavioral depression.
Learning how to stop sugar addiction can help prevent a life-long sentence in which addicts face the dangers of diabetes, obesity and a host of other health ailments.
Unquote

And here is another ‘classification’ chosen at random among myriads of other similar ‘classifications’.

quote
Dr. J. Teitelbaum, author of four natural wellness books, including “Beat Sugar Addiction Now,” says that beating sugar addiction doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach.
Teitelbaum lumps sugar addicts into four categories:

*** Chronically exhausted, energy-drink addicts, or as Dr. Teitelbaum calls the beverages, ‘energy loan-shark drinks.
*** Hungry, irritable sugar addicts who might be likely to tell you, “If I don’t eat now, I’m going to kill you.”
*** Those with chronic congestion, sinusitis or spastic colons.
*** Women who are perimenopausal (as well as some men who might have deficient levels of hormones like testosterone).
unquote

Could anyone ever doubt that if someone likes sugar (or any kind of filling food), he will stop eating only until the food “the deepest loathing to the stomach brings”?  That is, until he or she is stuffed?
I (or anyone else) can prove it by taking pictures of people exiting from any of the thousands of junk-food retailers and fast-food franchises.

Therefore the “research” of this example (and countless others) has indeed made some rats fat and benefited none but the researchers, paid cash for their “verification” of the “hypothesis”. Verification of the obvious and hypothesis of the already-known.

No wonder that Shakespeare was skeptical about medicines. Timon of Athens says to a bunch of would-be robbers, “Trust not the physician. His antidotes are poison and he slays more than you rob.”
As for the “four categories” of Dr. Teitelbaum why four? Other “researchers” have come up with 10, 15, 20 etc.

Suggestion for use.  A metaphor to guard against a sugar rich diet. Or an elegant, if direct way, to say no to additional dessert servings.

In the play. Lysander compares his suddenly lost love for Hermia to a stomach ache brought about by his excessive passion.

 

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